New E-Books: Contemporary Art and More

Our ever-evolving collection has expanded yet again, and we're happy to announce our most recent round of acquisitions.  Contemporary art, postmodernism, and psychological assessment are just a few of the topics our new titles cover in depth:

• Age of the Avant-Garde, 1956-1972
• Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity
• The Beribboned Bomb: The Image of Woman in Male Surrealist Art
• Communities of Sense
• EyeMinded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art
• From Head to Hand: Art and the Manual
• Klee
• Paul Klee and His Illness
• Photography and Philosophy: Essays on the Pencil of Nature
• Philosophers on Art from Kant to the Postmodernists: A Critical Reader
• Radical Use of Chance in 20th Century Art
• Replacing Home: From Primordial Hut to Digital Network in Contemporary Art
• Contemporary Intellectual Assessment: Theories, Tests, and Issues (3rd Edition)
• Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice (6th Edition)
• Handbook of Psychological Assessment (5th Edition)
• SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology

New: Ethnic NewsWatch Trial

Ethnic NewsWatch, described by Proquest as "a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. It may be combined with Ethnic NewsWatch: A History™ which provides historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989. Together, these resources present an unmatched, comprehensive, full-text collection of more than 2.5 million articles from over 340 publications. Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the resources is the inclusion of unique community publications not found in any other database, as well as top scholarly journals on ethnicities and ethnic studies," is currently being considered for acquisition by the UI&U Library, and we'd like your feedback before we commit to a full subscription.

In order to gain user insight and feedback, The UI&U library will be running a trial of Ethnic NewsWatch until August 16, 2012.  The trial can be accessed here.

If you feel that this database would be a valuable addition to UI&U's collection, please let us know.  We appreciate your feedback and want to provide the best resources available for all of our patrons.

At First Sight: The Shirl Jennings Story

"Sight is an amazing gift, and one which most of us learn from infancy, starting after birth when our eyes learn to focus. Through infancy, toddler years, and on into school years, our brains are trained to remember objects by how they look. The blind cannot do this. They use tactile sensations to identify and relate to everything.

When Shirl's sight was restored, the visual overload was almost devastating. He had no idea what he was looking at and the task of learning it all was emotionally and mentally challenging, as well as a huge physical burden.

Barbara Jennings, Shirl's wife, was determined that he could adjust to a life with sight and navigated unchartered waters to teach him everything - colors, alphabet, numerals, household objects, types of buildings and structural materials, trees and shurbs, animals, roads, railroads, airplanes, bridges, tunnels...the list was endless. There was always more for Shirl to learn."- from atfirstsighthebook.com



Shirl Jennings creating art, courtesy of Barbara Jennings

The story of Barbara Jennings, a graduate of UI&U's M.A. Psych program, and her late husband Shirl may be familiar to some of you, as their life story was given a glossy Hollywood adaptation in 1999 via the film At First Sight, starring Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino.  But as with any life story, perhaps the best narrator is the one who has lived it; in this case, Shirl himself, who, alongside Barbara and Margery Phelps, created At First Sight, the Shirl Jennings Story: The story behind the MGM motion picture, which is now available for purchase at Amazon.com.

Aside from the book, Barbara has preserved her husband's inspiring legacy by posting his gorgeous artwork on the At First Sight website.  There is a great deal of beauty in the couple's story and in the work Shirl created, and we hope that you will take the time to experience it for yourself.



Sun and Rays by Shirl Jennings, courtesy of atfirstsighthebook.com

Spotlight: EBSCO eBooks Collection

The UI&U Library’s newest database is also this month’s spotlight feature: The eBook Academic Subscription Collection.  This e-book database contains approximately 70,000 titles from a wide variety of academic disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.  Ebooks are hosted within the familiar EBSCO interface and can be viewed by an unlimited number of simultaneous users. 

The eBook Academic Subscription Collection (EASC) database can be accessed from the Databases by Subject page.  In addition, you can search the library’s entire collection of e-books--both EASC and other databases like ebrary--from the catalog (please see the instructional video below). 

The library is always looking for ways to expand our e-book collection with high quality, scholarly content and we are excited to now be offering access to this wonderful new database.

Upcoming Online Workshops: July and August

 Whether you're interested in basic research skills, a general library introduction, or faculty collection development instruction, our upcoming online workshops have you covered and are now open for registration.

Tuesday, July 17: Basic Research Skills  3-4pm EST/12pm-1pm PST

Tuesday, July 24: Advanced Research Skills: 12:05- 12:55pm EST/9:05-9:55am PST

Tuesday, August 14:  Faculty Collection Development, 5:20-6:10 pm EST/2:20pm-3:10pm PST

Tuesday, August 14: Library Orientation, 12:05-12:55pm EST/ 9:05-9:55am PST

Tuesday, August 21:  Basic Research Skills, 12:05-12:55pm EST/ 9:05-9:55am PST

Tuesday, August 28:  Advanced Research Skills, 3-4pm EST/12pm-1pm PST